The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining instances – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the American president commenced revealing all observers his plans for a lavish reception room double the dimensions than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of casualties resulting from his reductions to international aid is 600,000 and growing, and this week research forecast his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – really, no other president would have imagined – independently wrecking major areas of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' to 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the leader try to upend the old idea of democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the quickly increasing segment of Americans might have little sense regarding him as they consider themselves skeptics or uncertain individuals or nones. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the story of a powerful ruler arising; rather, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid covert authorities. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his message concerns compassion for other people, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to present the additional cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a way to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever an individual takes your coat you must offer them your pullover too.
The evident and straightforward reality that the Jesus from scripture calls for a kind of radical love concentrated on the needy has perpetually caused Christian religion rather a scandalous religion: engaging for the masses, but due to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Finest of Us
So I have been inspired to observe the steadfast resistance regarding Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has served as great solace to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to show up in numbers in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and appeals to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you receive him and embrace them or not?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured through connection to elements that cause it to be special and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In both situations does it imply acting as if the worst about the nation and Christian faith did not happen; it means both meekness and belief, a combination that committed US believers ought to accept.
